Software as a service is one of the hottest industries for start-ups in recent times. SaaS has become one of the most convenient, affordable, and efficient ways to develop solutions for every industry. Since you are not selling a tangible product, you need a proper and effective SaaS marketing strategies for your SaaS product to sell.

Strategy determines how successful your SaaS marketing activities will be, from lead generation to conversion to customer retention. As part of the strategy, you can get customer reviews to help build trust in your product.

What Is The Relationship Between Marketing And Reviews In SaaS?

Both are about spreading the word about your product but differ in scope. While marketing helps create demand for your product, reviews validate that demand. Marketing is about getting the word out to people who haven’t heard of you and educating them about the benefits of using your SaaS product.

The people may have heard about the product before but may need more information about it. SaaS marketing is challenging because you are not selling physical products. People have to see the value before purchasing. SaaS marketing strategies may involve free trials, demos, discounts, and other incentives.

On the other hand, reviews help to build social proof. Customers who have experienced the functionality of your product can write about it and its benefits. People usually trust what they hear from other users. They can buy your product if they read positive reviews about it. Reviews can be part of the strategy to market your SaaS product.

This article examines the 22 proven and most effective marketing strategies for SaaS companies.

Effective SaaS Marketing Strategies

The top marketing strategies for SaaS companies include the following:

Re-Examine Your Buyer Persona

A buyer persona is a fictional character that represents your ideal customer. They are not real people but a composite of your target customers’ characteristics. You develop buyer personas based on research and available data. If you’re selling a subscription-based product, it’s crucial to understand who your ideal customer is since this type of sale is typically recurring.

When you clearly understand your ideal customer, you can tailor your SaaS marketing strategies to appeal to them. A tailor-made marketing strategy for SaaS products increases the likelihood of customers buying from you instead of your competitors. You’ll understand customer needs and how to address them.

Besides identifying the features of your SaaS product that are most important to your ideal customer, you need to establish what drives their purchasing decisions. It will help you design your value proposition. For B2B SaaS companies, some characteristics of the buyer persona to write down include:

• Size of the organization
• Key decision-makers
• Any related software they use currently

You can then check their pain points and develop a marketing strategy to show how your product addresses them. Find ways to make your ideas reach the key decision-makers. You can do this through blog posts, social media posts, emails, etc. If they see that your product solves their problems, they will want to learn more about your SaaS company.

Compare Your SaaS Tool with Competitors

Your potential buyer is someone who knows they have a problem and research the internet for the best possible solutions. They have probably seen what your competitors offer. You must also check it out and compare it against what you offer.

Comparison helps you develop a more solid and effective SaaS marketing strategies. You will learn what the competitor is doing well and establish the areas that need improvement. You will include these in your plan, building from what others do and don’t do. It can help you position yourself as a leader in your industry, giving you an advantage over others.

The best ways to approach this include the following;

• Analyze their online profiles. Areas of focus can be their website, blog, and social media accounts. You can check their messaging and interactions for strengths and weaknesses. They will help you know how to position your effective SaaS marketing strategies.
• Industry trends and news. If the competitor has any new developments, you can always learn from them. Check out their online activity and if they start offering new things to the customers.
• Read whitepapers and case studies. You aim to learn from competitors’ successes or failures. Reading whitepapers and case studies will enable you to identify how competitors succeeded, what made them fail, or how they overcame challenges.

Comparisons help you develop marketing ideas that make your SaaS start-up stand out from the crowd. Since you’ve seen what is lacking in the competitor’s approach, you will address every customer need.

Embrace SaaS Content Marketing

SaaS content marketing involves creating and sharing valuable, relevant, and engaging content with your target audience to build trust and drive sales. It is one of the best and effective SaaS marketing strategies since it aims to fulfill different purposes, including:

• Generate leads
• Increase brand awareness and customer loyalty
• Improve customer satisfaction scores
• Increase sales conversion rates
• Increase social media engagement

SaaS content marketing will help you build your brand while establishing yourself as a thought leader in your industry or niche market segment. When developing content for marketing your SaaS product, ensure that the content helps your audience solve a specific problem.

Optimizing your content for search engines gives you a greater chance to reach a wider audience and become even more trusted. Because the SaaS world is dynamic, search engines always prioritize up-to-date information. Consistent publishing will improve the success rate of your SaaS content marketing activities. Ensure you provide high-quality, relevant content.

Develop A SaaS SEO Strategy

Employing search engine optimization (SEO) in your company is one of the effective SaaS marketing strategies that can help improve visibility and drive sales. It is not just about optimizing for keywords in your blog posts. You have to conduct complete website search engine optimization. When developing a marketing strategy for your SaaS company, you must understand what search engines are looking for when ranking websites.

Search engine optimization increases the chances that your website will appear higher in Google searches. This means that people will be able to find you more easily online and may choose your company over others who are competing with you for the exact keywords or phrases.

Review all your content and check the meta-data. Ensure that it is optimized to improve your rankings. Backlinks also play an essential role in improving search rankings. An excellent way to earn referrals and get links back to your website is by offering valuable content. You can do this by publishing white papers, case studies, and various other content types. Make sure that your content is channeled to a specific audience category.

Distribute your content across various platforms, including social media, guest blogs, and other relevant platforms.

Leverage SaaS PPC Campaigns

SaaS PPC campaigns can be part of the overall SaaS marketing methods to help get your product in front of potential customers. They allow you to target potential customers based on their location, industry, keywords they search for, and more. With a good SaaS PPC campaign, you will show your product to the relevant people, so you can have time to focus on product development.

The keywords you choose to rank for are essential. Use the right keywords, including their variations and long-tail forms. Your SaaS SEO marketing strategy can work together with your PPC campaign. Your ads will be shown to users with a higher chance of converting into paying customers. The best ways to formulate your PPC campaigns include the following:

• Build a detailed ad copy - You want it to be compelling and to address your buyer persona’s needs. The ad copy should have a clear call to action encouraging users to proceed to your website.
• Use relevant keywords - Ensure they are keywords specific to your industry and commonly used by your target customers.
• A/B testing - Test different landing pages and offers to establish the ones producing the best results. Once you select the best, you’ll optimize to get the most out of your PPC campaign.

Use Free Trials to Lure Customers

A free trial allows a user to try your product before they commit to buying it. It’s a great way to make sure that your product is a good match for their needs, and that they like it well enough to keep using it after the free trial period ends.

By including free trials in your SaaS marketing strategy, you demonstrate the value of your product to potential customers. The trial period needs to be long enough so that users can see the value of your SaaS software. Customers will also raise concerns about the functionality as they continue using your product.

Free trials enable you to attract more leads than you would have when selling directly. They help to build trust between you and your customers. They see that you can offer quality service for free for some period, and they will feel that your company will always treat them well daily. Besides the software’s functionality, users are also concerned with the support they’ll receive in case of a problem.

By using your SaaS software, the customers can establish how it helps them. They can even compare it against other software they use. They will sign up for a paid plan if your software provides more value.

Make Sign-Ups Easy

The time taken to sign up is significant when creating your SaaS marketing ideas. People don’t want anything that will consume much of their time or ask for irrelevant details. If you want more customers, ensure that your sign-up process doesn’t slow them down or confuse them.

A quick and easy sign-up process will get people excited about your product. They want to see what you’re offering right away. You can do this by:

• Making your form short, simple, and easy to understand
• Including clear instructions on how to use your product
• Showing the user what they’re getting before asking for their email address (this will help improve conversions)

The more sign-ups you have, the more customers you will get, which means more revenue for your business. Create customized emails for the people who sign-up and send communications regularly. Inform them about any developments with your software and how you want to improve your service.

Run “Pain Point” Webinars

Webinars are effective when trying to get real-time feedback. When developing marketing ideas for your SaaS company, webinars should be among those top on your list. Pain point webinars will enable you to identify your customers’ problems and develop ideas to solve them.

Running pain point webinars is important for your SaaS marketing strategy because it allows you to:

• Identify and prioritize the most pressing concerns that are keeping your target market from adopting your product
• Build relationships with your target market by providing them with the solutions they need
• Get real-time feedback on what features are working and which ones aren’t, so you can pivot if necessary

One advantage of setting up pain point webinars is responding to customers in real-time. You show off more than the product, showcasing your expertise in what you do. It sets you up as a reliable company that understands what they do. It can win you more customers and even lead to more referrals when people see the value of your SaaS software.

Partner With Non-Competing Companies

The key to success with this strategy is to make sure that the people you partner with have audiences that are different from yours. This way, you can get more exposure than you would by only targeting your audience. It can help you reach a new audience, expand your brand awareness, and get the word out about your product, thereby boosting the results of your SaaS marketing methods.

This partnership will help spread awareness about both of your products, helping them grow simultaneously. If your partner’s audience is interested in your product, you will reach them without having to do much work. You can partner with another company that already has a large audience and have them promote your product or service in exchange for some form of compensation.

If your company is trying to build up its user base and increase sales, consider partnering with other companies that offer related products or services. For example, if you’re selling a tool that helps small businesses manage their inventory, partner with an e-commerce platform. Not only will this help your users gain access to more products, but it will also give them more reasons to discuss both companies products.

Incentivize Referrals

Among the best marketing strategies for SaaS products, referrals provide the most effective leads. Besides being cost-effective, they build trust and are easier to scale than other types of marketing. They provide the best way to get new customers without spending money on advertising or customer acquisition.

Customers who come in through referrals are more likely to stick around than those who come in through other channels. They tend to be more loyal and satisfied with their experience. And since SaaS companies focus more on customer retention than acquisition, they should incentivize referral programs. For instance, you can offer discounts on the next subscription as a reward for every referral.

Incentives can make your customers refer more people, providing more business for your company. Ensure that the incentive is something your target customer will want. In addition, don’t just send out random emails asking people if they’d like to refer a friend or family member – ensure you’re targeting the right audience before sending out any offers like this.

Leverage SaaS Social Media Marketing Strategies

Social media marketing can help establish yourself as a reliable brand. You can reach your ideal audience, increase awareness and build customer loyalty. And the best part of it is that it is free. You can create an account on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, or LinkedIn for free!

People interested in your products can share your posts, spreading the word further. Social media interactions help build relationships, a critical factor in SaaS marketing. Once this audience signs up, they become long-term customers due to the excellent relationship built on social media.

Although you can market your SaaS product across all social media platforms, it is good to identify one or two sites and concentrate your efforts on them. Understand how effective the forum is for the type of content you want to share. Some social media sites, like LinkedIn, are suitable for long-form articles, while others, like Instagram, are good for videos and infographics.

For effective social media marketing, you can:

• Establish sites where your target audience spends most of their time and focus your efforts there
• Invest in influencer marketing to take advantage of the audiences influencers/famous people have already built
• Ensure your content is engaging and can make people interact with your brand
• Invest in social media ads for a wider audience

Leverage SaaS Email Marketing

Email marketing is among the most effective SaaS marketing strategies that provide the highest return on investment (ROI). You can use it to build a relationship with your customers, establishing yourself as an authority figure in your field. Email marketing is affordable and doesn’t require much work from you.

You can set up an automated system that will send out emails automatically based on triggers, like when someone subscribes to your list or purchases from your store.

For successful email marketing, implement these best practices:

• Keep it short and engaging. The content of your email shouldn’t provide too much unnecessary information. Keep it precise and straight to the point.
• Use an eye-catching subject line. You can use keywords that attract attention. Similarly, questions can be effective.
• Include visuals. Images, animations, and videos can help make the email more engaging.
• Don’t send generic emails. Personalization leaves a lasting impression. The recipient will be glad you took the time to craft an email specifically for them.
• Add call-to-action. A clear call-to-action will make readers know what you want them to do after reading the email. Include a link to your website and ask them to click it.

Get Your SaaS Product In Third-Party Review Sites

Third-party review sites are already established and have a large audience of people looking for new products like yours. Such sites can help you reach many potential buyers without the need to spend hours writing blog posts or generating other types of content.

It is an excellent strategy for marketing your SaaS product since it builds credibility. It shows potential customers that other people have used the product and liked it. This credibility can help you get more sales from existing customers looking to upgrade their current solution or new potential customers who want to try out your product.

Apart from providing social proof, third-party review sites give you a backlink. It is suitable for SEO since search engines can rate your site based on the backlinks received. Some examples of third-party sites include Gartner and Capterra.

Optimize Your CTA

The call-to-action (CTA) can help you achieve your goals. Visitors to your website need to know what you want them to do after checking out your content. To ensure that your SaaS marketing activities yield desirable results, don’t use traditional CTAs like “learn more” or sign up.”

You need to understand why customers use your software to optimize your CTA. Also, establish the words customers use when searching for your company or products. These two factors can determine how you will optimize your CTA. For instance, Mailchimp uses “Survey Your Audience.”

Use action words like “submit” and “download.” These will help guide the reader through the process and make them feel more confident in their choice. Make sure that your button color contrasts with the rest of the page, so it stands out clearly against other elements.

Conduct Business Networking Events

Business networking events are a great way to meet potential customers face-to-face and build relationships. They also allow you to showcase your product in an authentic way that’s not contrived. Including business networking events is an effective SaaS marketing strategies that will enable you to meet industry leaders and inform them about your product.

Business networking is one of the best methods of SaaS marketing since it:

• Builds trust between customers and companies. When customers see that a company is willing to invest time and effort into creating a genuine connection, it builds trust between them. It increases the likelihood that they’ll buy from you again in the future.
• Customers can see how your product works. One of the best ways to sell something is by showing people what it does, rather than just telling them about it—and this is especially true when selling SaaS products. Since customers interact with your product in person (or virtually), they can understand how it works much better than just reading about it on a website would allow them to.

You can also take part in local events as a speaker. That is an affordable way to participate in networking events and connect with industry leaders. Don’t leave the event without collecting the email addresses of potential customers. You will make a follow-up later.

Write Press Releases

When you write a press release, you’re telling the media and your customers that something new is happening in your business or industry. You can use them to announce new features, offerings, or partnerships. They also generate buzz around an event you’re hosting or some other significant milestone.

Press releases are especially effective if you can get them into the hands of influential people in your industry – whether that’s other business owners or bloggers who write about SaaS regularly. The more buzz they generate with their followers and readers, the better their chance of getting picked up by other news outlets.

Incorporating press releases in your SaaS marketing strategy can help build brand awareness and generate new leads. They can be shared on multiple platforms, including social media and blogs, providing access to thousands of potential customers.

Creating a press release is easy. Identify a journalist or media outlet, then study the topics they like to write about. You can contact them with your content if they write about something in your industry. Check if your writing style fits theirs before submitting it to them.

Start A Private Online User Community

Once you build a significant following online, you can get them into a private community. The group will consist of existing and potential customers, and you can share information about your brand and product with them. It allows you to engage with your customers in a much more personal way than other marketing strategies.

The unique connection makes them feel like they are part of something special. They can share information, ask questions and get answers from experts—all while feeling like they’re just one of many people who use your product or service.

It’s important to remember- it’s not just about getting new customers; it’s also about keeping the ones you already have happy and engaged with your brand. You can also share information about webinars and upcoming features and collect feedback about your SaaS software.

The community also provides a platform for networking since customers can connect.

Get Featured On Industry-Specific Podcasts

Podcasts are becoming popular. When you search, you will find a podcast about everything - including your industry (if it doesn’t exist, start it yourself!). You can email the host to get featured on an episode if you find a good podcast related to your industry. Many receive significantly few emails and are highly likely to reply.

Before emailing to ask for a feature, ensure that the podcast provides high-quality audio. Listen to a few episodes and see if it’s something your audience will listen to. Once you are satisfied with everything, send the email.

Your email can contain information about the following:

• Who you are and what you offer
• What you like about the podcast
• A topic that you can discuss on the podcast

Giving the host a topic makes work easier for them, so they won’t have to start thinking about what to talk about.

Once the podcast goes live, share the link on your platforms. The host’s audience will learn about your company, while your audience will also learn about the podcast. Getting featured on a podcast can also make people trust you and what you do.

Answer Questions On Quora

Quora is a website where people ask questions about anything and receive answers from experts. You can answer relevant questions about your field, establish yourself as an expert, and build up a following of people who will eventually become customers.

People will view you as an authority figure once you answer many questions in your field. You can also add a link when providing the answers for people to click and get to your website or social media handles for more information about a particular topic.

The more questions you answer, the more people will trust you as an expert. They can even request answers specifically from you. To ensure that you don’t miss a question about a topic in your field, select the categories in which you consider yourself an expert. Set up an email notification to get an alert when someone asks a question on a related topic. It will ensure that you don’t have to search for questions in your field.

People interested in what you offer will search for your website, subscribe to your email list, or even pay for a plan.

Use Engagement Campaigns On Facebook

When building an engagement campaign on Facebook, the primary goal is engagement. You want to observe the people who react, share or comment on your posts. People interacting with your content are likely to be good prospects.

Once you collect data on people interacting with your content, you build a custom audience. Start a retargeting campaign aimed at this group. Give them appealing offers to convert more prospects into leads. Collect their emails and nurture the leads. The established relationship can help provide long-term customers.

Share The First Paragraph Of Your Blog On LinkedIn With A “Read More” Link

Social media provides a channel to share information about your SaaS company. You can share videos, infographics, short-form, and long-form texts, or provide links to other platforms. The success of your SaaS marketing messaging on social media requires understanding how the specific forum works.

For instance, Facebook allows you to build an audience of followers for free. But when you share content, only a few of them get to see it unless it is a paid ad. Your brand will reach a significantly low number of people.

On the other hand, LinkedIn works differently. Someone with 500 connections can have their post seen by more than 1000 people. Marketers in the SaaS B2B space can take advantage of LinkedIn and reach more prospects.

Once you publish a blog post, you can share it on LinkedIn to generate traffic. Write a paragraph (comprising the key points from the blog post), then share it on LinkedIn with a link to your blog. This will bring more people to your blog by them clicking on the link.

The people who click on the link already know what the blog post is about based on the snippet you shared. You can reach out to them and inform them about what your company offers. A good number will subscribe to your mailing list or even sign-up for a free trial.

Promote High-Value, Downloadable Content via LinkedIn Ads

Many SaaS B2B marketers understand how valuable LinkedIn targeting levels can be and the results they can yield. LinkedIn ads are a bit costly compared to other platforms like Facebook. Aim to include LinkedIn ads in your SaaS marketing strategy unless your product is relatively inexpensive.

Don’t go hard selling to cold audiences when looking to sell on LinkedIn. Don’t ask the audience to request a demo or free trial right away. Aim to provide valuable information before you can attempt to sell.

For instance, you can offer your audience downloadable informative PDF files, guides, or templates. High-value, downloadable, top-of-the-funnel content will help build credibility. Once people see value in what you provide, they will be more receptive to your other attempts to sell to them.

Conclusion

When executing your SaaS marketing strategy, ensure you measure everything you do. Identify the campaigns that generate leads and sales, and focus on them to maximize profitability. New SaaS marketing tactics also pop up all the time. Marketers should therefore be up to date with the happenings in the start-up marketing world. Start-ups should seek innovation in the marketing world just like they would with product or service development.